‘The Chicago Tribune’ Is Wrong About Hecklers; Patton Oswalt and Steve Heisler Are Right

The Chicago Tribune ran an odd piece last week in which writers Nina Metz and Chris Borrelli explain their support for hecklers, explaining that they make stand-up shows more exciting and demonstrate how strong the comedian is by how they deal with having drunk people yell stuff at them. The whole thing is pretty insulting to comedians and the art form of comedy as a whole, and writer/comedian Steve Heisler has fired back with an excellent blog post that completely dismantles the Tribune writers’ already-shoddy argument. Tons of comedians, like Matt Braunger, John Roy, and Dan Telfer retweeted Heisler’s article, with Kurt Braunohler (or some troublemaker using Kurt Braunohler’s name) commenting, “I cannot believe that [Tribune] article doesn’t allow comments. Ugh. What a bunch of bullshit.” Best of all, supercomedian Patton Oswalt tweeted a link to the piece that’s scored hundreds of retweets and favorites, saying, “THANK YOU THANK YOU @steveheisler, and fuck you @chicagotribune for knowing zilch about comedy. Read & weep.” All in all, it seems like these great comedians love and respect comedy, whereas these Tribune writers like heckling more.